Underrail: The Incline Awakens

[Blaine]

Stop badmouthing versatility, people. It's great

with versatility being all the rage for past months in here and a bunch of us showing dominating builds I am indeed scratching my head as of why its viewed as bad

I haven't touched the game in a year and a half, nor read this thread on a daily basis.

The owners of this forum are too cheap to install a proper search function, and 63 of your past 100 posts (all that I can see) read only, "deterministic system > RNG."

So, I can't even check these builds you refer to; nor does using underrail.info as a search argument help to return any results (except the one you posted today, heh).

I think it's reasonable to posit that someone like me who's done around ten playthroughs between 2013 and 2019 knows the game well enough extrapolate what sorts of cheese strats would be necessary to justify Versatility. Additionally, if you know the game well enough, you can beat it with maximized—but, although maximized, nevertheless suboptimal—builds. A Versatile Dominating build is no doubt an interesting challenge to tackle.

I'll check out your build now. It's a DEX build, isn't it? Yeah, it's a DEX build. Oh look, it's a DEX-based pistol and knife build, as I predicted yesterday before I'd even laid eyes on a single Versatility build, ever.

In this specific instance, Versatility allows you to achieve low AP costs with both knives and your chosen pistol, while dumping PER to nothing because Versatility does the work of providing you with a (mediocre) Guns skill instead.

The reason I was able to predict this without even having made or laid eyes on a Versatility build before in my life is because it's so fucking obvious. And it's extremely restrictive, which is incredibly ironic given that the feat is called VERSATILITY. Maybe it should be called GUN BLADE LMAO instead?

Garbage feat, needs fixed. Usable only in a highly specific case.

 

[Ghulgothas]

What are these Tattoos that popped up in the builder?

There's a new hidden Mutie Tattoo artist in the sewers who'll ink you up. I think the trapdoor leading to his studio is randomized per-playthrough. Only get one of 'em I believe, can't split your true allegiance on your skin like you can in quests.

New bit of outside-leveling perks you can score. I'm not so sure they're one and done anymore though, maybe one for faction allegiance and another for one of your chosen conquests? More research is needed.

 

[lukaszek]

The owners of this forum are too cheap to install a proper search function, and 63 of your past 100 posts (all that I can see) read only, "deterministic system > RNG."

you should have noticed by now that this is a cycle of my life on this forum

anyway I believe it app started with Sheepherder and his versatile acid blob build. I think it was CHEMS who made fire blob one? I did space pirate knife + lazor, I think I first to actually use both weapon types. Surprised it went under your radar, I recall pinging you a lot about mercantile stuff.
Lastly SmellyWilly did ballistic that also utilized both melee and ranged. Poor guy did it before cool feats were introduced.

More or less thats my recolection of events, You should be able to find all but mine, unless someone quoted it

 

[Blaine]

The owners of this forum are too cheap to install a proper search function, and 63 of your past 100 posts (all that I can see) read only, "deterministic system > RNG."

you should have noticed by now that this is a cycle of my life on this forum

anyway I believe it app started with Sheepherder and his versatile acid blob build. I think it was CHEMS who made fire blob one? I did space pirate knife + lazor, I think I first to actually use both weapon types. Surprised it went under your radar, I recall pinging you a lot about mercantile stuff.
Lastly SmellyWilly did ballistic that also utilized both melee and ranged. Poor guy did it before cool feats were introduced.

More or less thats my recolection of events, You should be able to find all but mine, unless someone quoted it

I dipped in long enough to offer what basic advice I was able, but didn't read much else. When I'm "not currently into" a game, it's almost physically painful to "dip back into" it temporarily.

However, I am now ready... I think. I have to get my build ready first. I suppose I'll go with that sniper build. God knows, I haven't employed stealth or sniper rifles as primary skills in any recent playthrough, although min-maxed ninja garb and stealth field generators can get even a bumbling retard through many stealth-required activities.

How is Versatility laughable? It allows you to eliminate a stat from the 2 or 3 stat weapons, allowing to get other stuff. How is that a sacrifice? For example Chemical Pistols and Energy Pistols do more damage per turn with Versatility than they do with PER. Also SMGs are definitely better with Vers. Mechanical pistols post patch are about the same as a PER build. Using high DEX and leveling Melee, to replace Guns is hardly a "cheese strat".

Yeah, well, I'm not fully up-to-date on every patch yet. I've been away for a while.

My prediction of what form Versatility builds would take has been borne out upon seeing the first Versatility build I've ever encountered in my life. It's DEX-based pistols and knives, and dumped PER. It's the AP reduction mechanic that makes these builds viable, and that, to me, is a failure of the notion of "versatility."

When I mentioned cheese strats, I was mainly thinking of Crossbow. Or does anyone do Crossbow Versatility builds? Those are harder for me to simply extrapolate.

 

[lukaszek]

Or does anyone do Crossbow Versatility builds?

afaik no one (yet) shared such

 

[Blaine]

Or does anyone do Crossbow Versatility builds?

afaik no one (yet) shared such

Yeah, and no one ever will, because only DEX PUMP GUN BLADE is worth fooling with. Yet, it's in the icon... all alone, standing by the back wall, never to be asked to dance....

This should underline my point that Versatility has failed in its intent, even if it can be used by veteran players in certain ways.

And if a Versatility build includes Survival Instincts, then I can be absolutely sure it's a full-blown min-max build requiring very solid meta-game knowledge to pull off on Dominating. Which is totally fine, but not to my tastes.

 

[Tigranes]

Versatility is definitely a niche "now I know the game and have mastered the basics, here is one route to some funky cool builds" thing, and not recommended for anyone's first playthrough.

I'm not sure if the game should have been designed to make hybrids 'easier', though (a criticism AOD has also received) - I wonder how possible it is do that while retaining the challenge & systems complexity for veteran playthroughs.

 

[Blaine]

Versatility is definitely a niche "now I know the game and have mastered the basics, here is one route to some funky cool builds" thing, and not recommended for anyone's first playthrough.

I'll never be one to argue that every single mechanic has to cater to brand-new players (of which there are very few at this point, anyway), but in that realm, Versatility definitely falls into the category of "newbie trap." Though, to be fair, the entire game is a newbie trap, as these games should be.

 

[CHEMS]

And if a Versatility build includes Survival Instincts, then I can be absolutely sure it's a full-blown min-max build requiring very solid meta-game knowledge to pull off on Dominating. Which is totally fine, but not to my tastes.

That is true. The versatility pistolero build is very uncomfortable to use because of the high investment of skills in guns to make it work, though it's doable on DOM. The only build that is perfect for versatility is the SI Chemical one because the highest gun skill needed is just 35 to get Cooked Shot, that basically solves the poor accuracy in the early game since you can entangle groups of enemies. I feel versatility was made with chem pistols on mind. Crossbows don't benefit much of it because it needs a plethora of perks to actually cause some damage.

Care to share it? Preferably in this thread to revive it a little even if we're talking builds here anyway. Thinking for a while to try something like chem or energy pistols / vers / maybe + melee (DOM).

I already posted on this thread here, but i'll post later on the other the new, improved version with the new perks.

 

[lukaszek]

The only build that is perfect for versatility is the SI Chemical one because the highest gun skill needed is just 35 to get Cooked Sho

lazor one needs only 25 guns for high technicalities

 

[Ol' Willy]

lazor one needs only 25 guns for high technicalities

With firearm pistols you need only 15 for Gunslinger, lol. Rest are purely optional

 

[Ol' Willy]

SmellyWilly

This was completely uncalled for

 

[CHEMS]

lazor one needs only 25 guns for high technicalities

With firearm pistols you need only 15 for Gunslinger, lol. Rest are purely optional

Rapid fire, steadfast aim, pointshot are a must in a pistolero build, IMO. If you're playing on DOM, that is.

 

[Ol' Willy]

Rapid fire, steadfast aim, pointshot are a must in a pistolero build, IMO. If you're playing on DOM, that is.

Rapid Fire - three shots at 150% AP cost. Redundant with AP reduction from DEX
Point Shot - one shot at 50% AP cost. Redundant with AP reduction from DEX
Steadfast Aim - good stuff (though made redundant with SI), but Guns requirement is just 25 (not a big deal). Real showstopper is 5 STR that is harder to allocate

I'm talking from DOM experience, man. .44 Hammerer just wrecks stuff on its own

 

[ciox]

Man this build is a lot of fun, electroshock pistol as soon as entering Junkyard, about 75% accurate against most mooks, knives with pinning and plenty of acid vials since merchants carry up to 25 of them now, so I put about 50 of them on my belt. Small oversight there, that double-click isn't enabled to automatically move vials to the belt.

On a sour note, it used to be that getting about 25 evasion was good for one thing, not getting entangled by acid dogs. Now that's been changed so that with 25 evasion you will reliably get entangled every single time. Looks like I might be forced to either get more evasion or really hate this skill, not sure.

 

[CHEMS]

Rapid Fire - three shots at 150% AP cost. Redundant with AP reduction from DEX
Point Shot - one shot at 50% AP cost. Redundant with AP reduction from DEX
Steadfast Aim - good stuff (though made redundant with SI), but Guns requirement is just 25 (not a big deal). Real showstopper is 5 STR that is harder to allocate

I'm talking from DOM experience, man. .44 Hammerer just wrecks stuff on its own

Not seeing the full picture, dude. Smart Modules + JKK vest.

 

[ciox]

lazor one needs only 25 guns for high technicalities

With firearm pistols you need only 15 for Gunslinger, lol. Rest are purely optional

And smart amplified energy pistols only need 10 for Aimed Shot.



... and 6 PER

 

[None]

Rapid fire, steadfast aim, pointshot are a must in a pistolero build, IMO. If you're playing on DOM, that is.

Rapid Fire - three shots at 150% AP cost. Redundant with AP reduction from DEX
Point Shot - one shot at 50% AP cost. Redundant with AP reduction from DEX
Steadfast Aim - good stuff (though made redundant with SI), but Guns requirement is just 25 (not a big deal). Real showstopper is 5 STR that is harder to allocate

I'm talking from DOM experience, man. .44 Hammerer just wrecks stuff on its own

Rapid Fire and Point Shot are hardly redundant with high DEX unless I'm missing something. Right now my current character (11 DEX, Gunslinger) only needs 5 AP to do point shots with a 5mm.

 

[Ol' Willy]

Rapid Fire and Point Shot are hardly redundant with high DEX unless I'm missing something. Right now my current character (11 DEX, Gunslinger) only needs 5 AP to do point shots with a 5mm.

Cool, you can make one Point Shot per turn. This is hardly critical when your AP cost is already low enough

Also lol, 6 PER requirement? No way for proper minmaxed Versatility build. The point is to dump PER all the way to 3.

 

[jackofshadows]

These builds with per 3 are look tiresome to me, haven't played enough to memorize all the mines in the game yet.

 

[Mortmal]

The DLC, finally took time to try, is fantastic, but what an odd choice to put it in the middle of the game and forcing another playthrough . This could be easily scaled as an end game expansion. I noticed very trivial achievements are completed by barely 1% of the player base, so i am pretty sure most wont even bother with it.A shame as its superior to the original underail on every aspects.
By the way is there an underail 2 on the work now ?

 

[Ghulgothas]

Part of me still wonders what Expedition would've been like as an expandalone like it was originally envisioned, making it part of basegame both forced it to be scaled down and posed a number of difficulties around implementation.

Tbh, I'm fine with the future of Underrail being a set of disconnected-but-varied adventures with little direct continuity that only contribute to eachother in an overarching metanarrative kind of way.

 

[CHEMS]

Guys... what's a "electromagnetic emitter"? I looted this thingie in the lost vault, it's a component i never saw before. Must be new stuff from the update

 

[ciox]

If it's not actually a deflector, discharger, or field stabilizer, then it must be a new energy weapon component, doesn't seem very likely tho.

 

[CHEMS]

Looks like a new component alright, the icon is something i never saw before

"Electromagnetic Emitter

This device can emit electromagnetic radiation at any frequency"

I see nothing on the wiki about it